Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy on July 30. / Patrick Semansky, AP

by Jim Michaels, USA TODAY

by Jim Michaels, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON â?? The trial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning challenged the traditional definition of what defines a traitor.

The classic case of a mole leaking sensitive documents to a foreign country has been replaced by a junior analyst who can release troves of information to the public with a few key strokes.

Is the law up to the challenge?

Col. Denise Lind, the military judge, ruled Tuesday that Manning violated a number of laws, including portions of the Espionage Act, but was not guilty of aiding the enemy, a more serious charge that carried a potential life sentence.

Analysts say the government had to clear a higher hurdle in proving that Manning intentionally aided the enemy. They would have to prove that he could reasonably conclude that release of the information would find its way into enemy hands after he turned it over to WikiLeaks.

"They did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had a specific intent to aid or assist the enemy," said Phil Cave, a former military lawyer now in private practice.

That's generally easier to prove in a more traditional case where a suspected traitor is passing information directly to a foreign agent. Manning had argued he was driven by altruistic reasons.

The government had argued that as an intelligence analyst Manning would have known that the information would have been of benefit to al-Qaeda.

"In this case where you got information passed along to WikiLeaks it's a little different, but it's a matter of what happened with that information once it's been passed on," said Gary Barthel, a former Marine Corps staff judge advocate.

Prosecutors had argued that Manning assisted al-Qaeda by releasing thousands of pages of documents to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks. Some of the documents were found on a computer belonging to Osama bin Laden.

"He was not a whistle-blower, he was a traitor," the prosecutor, Maj. Ashden Fein, told the court in closing arguments.

Some legal experts have suggested that Congress may want to examine the aiding the enemy law in light of changes in technology and the changing nature of the threats to the United States.

"Aiding the enemy has an antique, quaint dimension that sounds like cavalry units," said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School.

Still, charging Manning under the law shows that the Obama administration is inclined to view Manning and Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who also leaked secret information to the public, as serious threats to the nation.

"The administration is deadly serious about this," Fidell said. "Manning was a wake-up call and so is Mr. Snowden."

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said the verdict was an attempt to muzzle anyone inclined to go public with important information.

Analysts, however, said the administration is trying to get its hands around a growing threat to the country's security.

Today, the country faces threats from thousands of people with access to information and the ability to publish it instantly.

"It's even more important to prosecute those crimes," Barthel said. "With technology it's so much easier to disseminate that information. The military, the government has to take a very strong stand on it."

"He put an enormous number of people in great danger," said Daniel Benjamin, , a former counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department and now director of Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding. "It's absurd to say that this is serving the public good."